JEDDAH, 8 December 2002 — Female nurses in a Riyadh hospital went on strike for two hours recently protesting their management’s failure to fulfill contractual obligations.

Thirty-four female nurses, contracted by Abdullah Saleh Al-Qaraawi Company to work at the Riyadh Medical Complex under a sub-contract, demanded that the company either allow them annual vacation or relieve them as their contracts have expired.

They also complained about unhygienic conditions at their residential quarters. The demands also included transfer of their sponsorship to the Ministry of Health which provides far better working conditions. The nurses said they were paid very low while asked to work long hours. The contracting company pays between SR900 and SR1,100 to the nurses.

They said 15 workers were provided eight beds in a small room with no air-conditioner. The nurses pointed out that though the terms of the contract included free food, they never received any. They were also denied free telephone calls. The company supplied only a single set of uniform during the three years of their service.

They claimed that these were the circumstances that forced them to stop work. The nurses resumed work only after a representative of the contracting company announced a pay raise of SR200 and promised to look into all their problems immediately. They warned that the work stoppage would resume if the promises were not met.

Abdullah Al-Qaraawi, director of administration at the contracting company, refuted most of the charges made by the nurses. However, he blamed the Ministry of Health for the company’s failure to send the nurses on vacation or terminate their services.

Al-Qaraawi said the company could not take a final decision in the matter because of the ministry’s failure to renew its contract with the company four months after its expiration. The ministry has not clarified whether it wants to renew the contract or not, but the company hopes that it will be renewed.

Dismissing most of the claims made by the nurses as baseless, he said only 34 of the 195 employees participated in the protest strike.